LIFE ISN'T ROCKET SCIENCE

Bill Gates is an incredibly wealthy man.

Bill Gates is an incredibly successful technologist.

Bill Gates is an incredibly successful entrepreneur.

Bill Gates is an incredible validation of a Harvard education.

Bill Gates is an incredible example of how the best and brightest can be way out of touch with reality in America.

Recently I heard an interview with Bill Gates and his wife. They plan to donate 90% of their wealth to charity.

During the TV interview, Bill Gates said that in the future he wants 80% of all Americans to be college educated.

Colleges students are selected on the basis of their IQ (or perhaps because of athletic ability or some quota imposed by the government). Colleges and universities pride themselves on being set up to educate “the best and brightest”.

At UCLA, where I was once an assistant professor, I did not see students with IQs below 100. In my years of service in the US Army Mathematics Steering Committee, I visited many university campuses. I did not see students with IQs below 100 there either.

An IQ of 100 is average. Therefore, the “Bill Gates quota” would apply a new level of “dumbing down” to the education system.

Here in Harford County Maryland, one of the most productive schools is our Vo-Tech high school. It does not focus on IQ; it focuses on capability to produce. They do not limit technical to “high-tech”. They don’t dumb down the students’ education. But they don’t accept 80% either.. They admit students who love doing what Vo-Tech teaches. They focus on building productivity.

Bill Gates was privileged, brilliant and doing what he loved from the age of puberty, as do the kids at Vo-Tech.

I wonder what makes Bill Gates think that 80% of the population will love doing what college prepares them for.

Indeed President Obama’s recent focus on junior colleges seems to me to be a much better idea than that proffered by Bill Gates.

I earned four degrees from Cal Tech. Nevertheless, I may have been less productive than either of my two brothers who were not college educated.

The oldest of them had a successful career in the U.S. Air Force Strategic Air Command. When he left the Air Force he started a very successful business. In -,

After my other brother got out of the Army at the end of World War II, he went to work in the oil fields. He started out, as I did later, as a roustabout. Eventually he became one of the nation’s experts on “secondary recovery”. Secondary recovery is a highly technical method of reclaiming the residual 85% of the oil left behind when traditional production methods no longer work. He was doing what he loved.

My take is that an education system in which 80% of the population find a productive niche which they love would do much for the country. College educating people who do not love what they find there will not do much for the country. Dumbing down the college Curriculum will not do much for the country.

Riding my exercise bike this morning I watched Jon Scott on Fox News report

”Fire under bridge halts Metro-North commuter trains in and out of Manhattan.”

How did they go about making this a big story? I guess they went back to If It Bleeds It Leads. Because what they were talking about was how taking a small bridge to the north of Manhattan of service would trap the hundred thousand commuters in the city. They went on to discuss how difficult it would be to leave Manhattan heading north if this bridge was out of service.

But Jon Scott, a private pilot[1] and the man who has commented on many news stories about terrorists should know better. By highlighting this important part of the Manhattan infrastructure as a bottleneck Jon was shouting fire in The Theater of Homeland Security.

In the years that I worked as a civil service I noticed that anytime the media highlighted an event which fell into the area of responsibility of one of my bosses, the boss felt the need to take action.

We hear every day that Islamic terrorists are looking for a way to strike at America. How much more information do they need beyond this newscast to find an easy vulnerable troublemaking target in New York City?

How much more of a shove do the bosses of Homeland security need in order to come up with some new regulation that invades the lives of commuters in New York City?

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[1] https://amsrvs.registry.faa.gov/airmeninquiry/Detail.aspx?uniqid=A4463243&certNum=

Sometimes life is like the lay of the land in California. On the mountain top you can see all the dimensions of your world.  From Death Valley you cannot see all the dimensions of your world. But the stars can be seen even from deep within a hole. In life impaired vision is dysfunction.

Only rarely have I been in a deep personal hole. At 77 I see my life from the high ground.  I see much good that had come unexpectedly into my life: wonderful children; wonderful wife Michelle; wonderful way of life beyond any reasonable expectation given my level of either professional or financial success.  There is no rational explanation that would satisfy my college classmates. They might chalk it up to random good luck. My mother, if she were still here, would ascribe it to God’s intervention.

And yes, from here as I look back, I agree with my mother and all those who are of like mind.  That puts me even farther from Stephen Hawking’s beliefs than from his accomplishments. When he wrote his book “A Brief History of Time” he is reputed to have said that he did not know if there is a God. More recently Professor Stephen Hawking told ABC News, “One can’t prove that God doesn’t exist, but science makes God unnecessary. The laws of physics can explain the universe without the need for a creator.”

This is a step away from pure atheism to something that I label as A Unidirectional Belief in God. That is to say “what I think about God’s existence is important but, There Is No Way God Thinks About Me!”

The parable of a good man stranded in a flood sheds light the unidirectional belief in God.  In the story, a man stranded on the roof of a house in a flood refuses several rescue offers saying, “God will save me”.  HE DIES. In heaven, he asks why God did not save him. The answer is that God sent many people to rescue him, all of whom he rejected! In the control of his ego, he expected to have a personal face-to-face rescue by God.

Because of ego we see “Through a glass darkly”  1 Cor. 13, 12. The keystone of unidirectional belief is substitution of ego for God.  If you have a unidirectional belief in God, your ego will claim that it is solely responsible for all of your good or lack of good. Your ego may even blame all of your failures on “George Bush”.

Let me propose a Multi-directional Belief in God. It is a belief in which we know that God exists and that he believes in us too! “Fear ye not therefore, ye are of more value than many sparrows”. Matthew 10:31